


Eternal Perpetuation Of A Great Mistake

by The_Morregan



Category: Original Work
Genre: ASK ME ABOUT THE NAMES, Abusive Relationships, Adrastos Is A DoucheWaffle, All the children - Freeform, Best Friends Are Not Enabling, Best Friends Are Painfully Honest, Blair Is In Too Deep, Blood, Branimir Is Depressed, Brother/Sister Reconciliation, Caprice Needs A Business Partner, Ciara Is In Denial, Death, F/F, F/M, Fluff, Gay Characters, Gore, Immortality, Internalized Homophobia, Irmalinde Needs Love, LOTS OF CHILDREN HOLY SHIT, Loss, Lots Of Therapy Needed, Love, Love Through The Ages, M/M, Magic, PTSD, Petty Bullshit, Platonic Soulmates, Sexual Fluidity, The Big Three Are Fucking Idiots, The Parents Are Tired, Unconditional Love, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, War, Will Add More Tags Eventually, Witchcraft, coping with abuse, probably, repressed homosexuality
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-28
Updated: 2017-09-12
Packaged: 2018-11-20 02:19:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11326623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Morregan/pseuds/The_Morregan
Summary: A way of putting my newest Plot-Bunny through the ringer. 10 Immortals through the ages, the loss they face, the love they give each other, and the wars that they start over petty bullshit. Just like real families!





	1. In The Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> HI! I don't know how much attention this will get, but a few PSA's  
> *Names will change every once in a while, but I'll make a note of who's who in the.... well, Notes.  
> *THE UPDATES WILL NOT BE IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER, but I will note the time period they're in, where they are, and who's perspective the chapter is from  
> *This work is totally my own idea (I think?) and any similarities to existing works are either by accident, and if they're not I will make a not of the reference  
> THANKS FOR READING! HERE WE GO!

PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS BLOOD, GORE, VIOLENCE AND THE DETAILED LOSS OF A CHILD. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK.

* * *

**_BRANIMIR_ **

 

 **Gallia, 400 BCE (** **_not far from modern-day Monaco, France)_ **

 

In the beginning, everything went fuck-all wrong.

 

      The skirmish with the locals had lasted for days, and Branimir was bone-tired, panting against an oak. The bruises that littered his body screamed in protest at the slightest shifting of his armor, almost in harmony with his commander’s  rallying cry across the battlefield.

 

 _If I leave this field alive I swear I’m going to kill that man,_ he thought. Growling through his teeth he followed the sound of the Welshman howling in victory, and hapless Gauls screeching in pain. His arrival back into the thick of the fighting was none too soon, as the image he was greeted with would come to warm his heart for centuries.

 

      His fearless, faultless, ever-so-brave, and bloodthirsty commander, a man of twenty, named Blair, was sprawled in the dirt and blood, held at swordpoint by a young woman standing over him with his own broadsword. She wore a wicked grin, and her eyes were the most unsettling shade of gold Bran had ever seen in his life. The broadsword in her hand was a flawless extension of herself, though how could it be? It was the commander’s pride and joy, never out of his sight, and none of the locals had been seen with more than a smallsword since the Legion had attempted to first “acquire” the village.

 

      Slowly, as the battle died down, the rest of his platoon noticed their Commander’s distress, and began to form around them. They watched carefully from the sidelines, scanning over the strange young woman’s body for weakness, and one idiot, whom Bran would come to find out later was Adrastos, loosed an arrow at her. His aim was true, Bran could see where it should have hit, but it bounced off her unarmored body like a stream of water, with only a flick of her hand.  Blair howled in pain, and Bran noticed that she had moved the broadsword’s point from his neck, to something infinitely more sensitive.

 

For the first time since his rallying cry across the field, Bran heard his commander’s voice.

 

“Don’t do this, Ciara. I-”

 

The young woman’s eyes flashed, and her smiled widened, “Don’t beg, _my love,_ it doesn’t suit you. And trust me, anything that I may do to you now would be a hundredfold at the hands of my mother or cousin. Count yourself lucky that I persuaded them from coming after you.”

 

Blair stilled, and his eyes grew so wide that Bran could see their color clearly from 5 feet away. “Are you….. Is it…. There’s no way…”

 

“Oh, you know the way very well,” she chuckled.

 

Bran watched Adrastos circle the pair slowly and come behind the young woman, seeming to ignore the strange discourse between her and  his commander. There had long been rumors that Adrastos was trying to court one of the women from the village, and, judging from the predatory jealousy that gleamed in his eyes, this was probably her. In an instant Adrastos wrapped his arm around her throat, and held a knife to her belly.

 

“I think you’ll take a walk with me now, won’t you Ciara? It’s well past time, you know.”

 

Blair reached out, as if to stop Adrastos, and the young woman, Ciara apparently, hissed through her teeth. A small line of blood dripped from just below her bellybutton, where Adrastos’ wickedly sharp knife was pressed, the threat very clear.  “Ah-ah, Blair medear. Not another step closer, or I’ll make sure she never sees another sunrise.”

 

The woman struggled against his hold, and he bent his head to whisper in her ear, looking almost like a lover but for the way his eyes were locked with Blair’s. She whimpered, and her eyes grew wide, but her struggles stopped as his head lifted from the curve of her neck.

 

“Right then. Let’s go see your mother, shall we my darling? I’d hate for you to be wounded so far from help.” Adrastos pushed past the soldiers surrounding the odd little scene, taking care to tuck the woman under his arm as they strolled back toward the village. Blair jumped up and followed them, fear very present in his eye.

 

 _Don’t go following them, you idiot. Nothing but trouble would come of it, and you have your sister to think of._ Bran chuckled to himself. He had his sister to think of well before they had been captured, but that hadn’t seemed to matter to the universe at large.  Ignoring his inner voice, ( _which turned out to be right in the long run, thanks much.)_ Bran took off after two of his commanding officers, and an odd woman who would come to matter a surprising amount.

* * *

 

 

It was high noon by the time Blair (and by extension Bran, who had to keep to the shadows) caught up to Adrastos and the woman, about five minutes from the village outskirts.  The woman was still tucked tightly against Adrastos’ shoulder, but a few new bruises said that she had tried to make an escape at least once.

 

“Adrastos!” Blair called out to the pair.

 

 _Good move, knobhead. Let them know you’re spitting distance away, that won’t send him into a panic._ Bran was dumbfounded by his commander most days.

 

But, again, the voice had merit. Adrastos lifted the woman bodily, threw her over his shoulder and took off at a sprint toward the village.

 

“NO BLAIR STAY BACK!” The woman’s voice was faint and oddly cadenced, but still discernible through the trees.

 

Bran, noting almost casually that his commander didn’t have the sense to listen, and instead did _the exact bloody opposite_ , broke into a run beside Blair.

 

“ _WHAT THE_ FUCK _ARE YOU DOING HERE, BRANIMIR?”_

 

“Save your breath, I’m helping you.” Bran shook his head at himself as he ran, easily outstripping Blair, who was still in full armor.

 

“ _WHY?”_ They were running. At full speed. In armor. And this idiot was asking _why_?

 

“It seemed like a good idea at the time. Just shut up, will you?”

 

If it weren’t for the frightened cries of the woman ahead of them, Bran could have almost called what followed a blessed silence.

 

The pair broke through the trees just after Adrastos and the woman had, but Adrastos had continued into the center of the village. Bran and Blair followed them, and the sight that greeted them in the town square was frankly horrifying. Adrastos had the woman lifted above his head by the throat and was screaming at her in a language Bran didn’t understand. She wriggled in his grasp, pleading with him in a gasping voice, and scrabbling uselessly at his fingers. Tears streamed down her face, which grew more blue by the second.

 

Bran remembered his sister’s own pain, her screams and her helplessness, and charged at Adrastos, knocking him and the woman to the ground. Mindlessly, he gave in to rage and bloodlust, punching Adrastos with ardor until a strong pair of arms lifted him away.

 

The moment Bran’s weight was gone from his chest, Adrastos bolted upright, and scrambled away from Bran and Metodios, the army’s Bard, who was restraining him. Adrastos, blood pouring from his nose and mouth, looked about frantically for the woman, and when he saw her clinging to Blair he howled in rage.

 

“I LOVE YOU, WHY CAN’T YOU UNDERSTAND THAT! WHY MUST YOU FLEE TO HIM? _I_ LOVE YOU, NOT _HIM._ ”

 

The woman buried her face into Blair’s chest, unspeaking.

 

Adrastos, eyes alight with jealous fury, spoke softly, “Ciara, my dear, my darling, my love. Can’t you see he’s using you? Don’t you see that you mean nothing to him, even while you carry his bastard in your belly? I can rid you of him, I can take all this pain away! All I ask is that you LOVE ME!”

 

Blair only held the sobbing woman tighter.

 

Adrastos’ voice became calm, and honeyed again, “Ciara, please, darling, look at me. I want you to see the truth in my eyes. You know what I say is true, I only want what’s best for you and the baby. Our baby.”

 

The woman broke away from Blair’s hold, and stalked toward Adrastos, broadsword in hand, “THIS CHILD WILL NEVER BE YOURS!”

 

She charged toward Adrastos, sword held high. Swinging wildly, she screamed, but Adrastos had just enough wherewithal to duck and parry her swings with his own sword. Metal clanged, and the womans’ war cry echoed through the town square. Bran and the others watched, awestruck, as the fight raged on. Adrastos would only defend, and taunt with bitter words, and the woman was a fierce, if untrained, fighter. But, Bran knew Adrastos’ fighting style well. He was only weakening her, wearing her down by allowing her to make all the moves, and damaging her judgement with his words. Finally, Bran saw the moment Adrastos would strike, but before he could draw breath to shout a warning, Adrastos thrust his sword forward into the woman’s belly.

 

 _Well, this is about to get very ugly,_ Bran couldn’t help but think.

 

Blair yelled, a hoarse, shattered, sound, and rushed to her side. He caught her just before she hit the ground, and pressed his hand to the gaping  wound, desperately trying to stop the ( _fatal,_ **_Bran’s mind supplied unhelpfully_ ** ) bleeding.

 

Adrastos crowed over the pair, “If I cannot have her then neither shall you, or anyone else!”

 

Blair only knelt, knees quickly stained by the woman’s blood, and sobbed, and howled helplessly at the sky. He rocked her in his arms, and clung to her as though he could keep the gods from taking her away.

 

Another woman, whose face so resembled Ciara's that she could have been her sister, but for tiny wrinkles etched into her face, tore through the street, followed quickly by another young woman, and, strangely enough the army’s Holy Man, Cephus.

 

“Move!” The older woman shoved Blair roughly away from the prone body of what could only be her daughter, “I said MOVE, you great oaf! There’s still time! Nuala, Cephus, help me!”

 

“Gailavira, how-” Cephus looked utterly hopeless, but was quickly cut off.

 

“It doesn’t matter how, and if you won’t help me then just GO! Nuala, come here, I need you. We can save her!”

 

The other young woman rushed to Gailavira’s side, handing her bandages ripped from her own skirt.

 

“We have to pack the wound. Stop the bleeding, and then we can begin the ritual. Hold on, just hold on. I can save you, baby, you just need to hold on for me,” Gailavira seemed to be muttering more to herself than to anyone around her, as she worked quickly.

 

“....Mama….”

 

Gailavira looked at the young woman on the ground, so much smaller and paler now, “No, baby. Don’t talk, just hold on for me. I’m going to make you all better.”

 

“Auntie, the bleeding has slowed. We have to do it now!”

 

Cephus motioned  to Metodios, who wrapped his arms around a stunned Adrastos, “Gailavira, how else can I help you?”

 

“Keep these two blundering oafs away, and stay quiet! I don’t have time to deal with them now!”

 

Bran heard a crash from the forest, only feet away, and when he looked toward it he saw his sister. Irmalinde fought the grip of another “camp entertainer”, a wild-looking girl named Caprice.

 

“No! You have to stay back!” Irmalinde kept running, resisting Caprice the entire way. She only stopped when she collided with Bran, and began to sob.

 

“Bran, Bran, please. I heard that Adrastos had run off with a girl, and Blair followed him! Is he alright? Please, Bran, tell me he’s alright!”

 

_So much care for her only brother. She’s worried about her captor and rapist, how lovely._

 

Bran grabbed his hysterical sister by the wrists and shook her, trying to steer her back the way she had come, “Irmalinde, listen to me! He’s fine, you have to leave now! You and Caprice have to go! Right now!”

 

“No! No, you don’t understand! I love him, I have to be here,” Irmalinde cried as she fought against Bran’s hold, desperately trying to push past him and run to Adrastos.

 

 _Oh, what I would give for her to have heard his words, only a moment ago,_ Bran thought rather meanly. _She would know what she means to the man she so hopelessly “loves”._

 

Caprice, for what it was worth, was trying to drag her away as well. Bran chanced a look over his shoulder, catching sight of Cephus holding Blair upright, and Adrastos struggling in Metodios’ arms. Gailavira and Nuala knelt on either side of Ciara’s body, both covered in blood and chanting fervently. Their hands were inches above the horrible gash in her abdomen, and a strange light emanated from their palms.

 

Before his eyes, Bran was witnessing a miracle. Ciara’s flesh knit back together, and…. Grew?

 

The life that Ciara had held inside her body swelled beneath her new-formed skin, even before her breathing began again. Ciara’s head glowed with the same burnished golden light that came from Gailavira’s palms, while her abdomen sparkled and crackled with a more silvery light, one that surrounded Nuala. A circle seemed to be cutting itself into the ground around them, and Bran panicked. He tried to shove his sister and Caprice outside the circle, but found that he was rooted to the spot.

 

 _Magically-given life will always demand a life in return,_ echoed an ominous voice from the back of his head, and Bran knew that, for better or worse, it was too late to back away.

 

The circle completed itself, and, without warning, a sphere of golden light webbed with silver grew over all of their heads and shot a glowing beacon into the sky. Its light rivaled that of the sun, and for a moment there was only blinding whiteness that seemed to stretch time into infinity. The world stood still, and all the people within the circle were left without a breath in their bodies.

 

The light slowly faded, and breath returned to Bran with a sucking intake that made him cough.

 

Gailavira and Nuala’s shouts of joy were quickly eclipsed by a heart-wrenching shriek of absolute pain, that had everyone in the circle turning to find it’s source.

 

Ciara sat up, covered in her own blood and stained rags, clutching a tiny, tiny body and screaming wordlessly. Her mother and cousin ( _How do I know that,_ **_Bran asked himself._ ** _Probably the same way we know Metodios is on the run from the law. Something happened in that moment of light that connected us all.)_ had paid for her life with the life of her unborn child.

 

Blair dropped from Cephus’ arms, like a puppet with cut strings. He crawled to Ciara, a broken man toward a living chasm of despair, and wrapped her and their child in his arms rocking her as she cried. It was Ciara who sat away from his embrace long enough to wrap her child in one of the cloths from around her own body. She looked the baby over, and smiled slightly with tears still streaming down her face, “We had a girl, my love. A beautiful, perfect little girl.”

 

Ciara’s voice broke, “What should her name be? She should have a name, shouldn’t she?”

 

“Of course,” Blair had never sounded so utterly, completely broken, and Bran had never before seen him cry. “She should have a flower name. Just as pretty, and perfect and fleeting as she was.”

 

Ciara hiccupped through her tears, and she fell sideways back into Blair’s chest, “Violet.”

“My perfect, little Violet. Our daughter,” Blair pressed his forehead into Ciara’s shoulder as he sobbed. They cried together, cradling their baby, rocking and humming pieces of lullabies as much to each other as to the daughter who would never hear them.

 

Bran found his own eyes flooded, releasing his sister who was sobbing anew, and crumpling into the dirt by her side.

 

Metodios and Cephus stood, silent tears running down their faces, and Gailavira wailed into Nuala’s shoulder, still kneeling on the ground not far from her daughter.

 

Ciara had come back, but was it worth the cost?

 

_It’s never worth the cost._

* * *

 

 

Night had been overcome by dawn when Bran woke, clutching tightly to Irmalinde and Caprice. He looked up, and saw that Blair and Ciara were curled around their baby. Ciara was still whispering lullabies and stroking her tiny face, and Blair had finally fallen into an emotionally exhausted sleep. Adrastos stood over them, a small, dangerous smile on his lips, when Ciara spoke, her eyes never leaving her daughter.

 

“Are you happy now? Was this enough?”

 

“Never, my darling. Nothing but your love will ever be enough,” Adrastos said, reverently.

 

Ciara stood, slowly. Gathering the baby carefully into the crook of one one arm, and taking Blair’s sword into her hand, she faced Adrastos, “Then I will have your life.”

 

The sword was pushed through his armor and his ribs with more force than Bran thought her capable of having. Ciara only looked up at Adrastos long enough to shove the blade into his heart, and the gaze she fixed him with in that moment was devoid of hate. It was a tired gaze, dispassionate.

 

Adrastos’ small ‘ah’ of pain brought the ghost of yesterday’s wicked smile to her face once more, “Your death will not bring my daughter back, and you will never know the pain that you have put me through. But do know that your death will bring me more satisfaction than your love ever could have.”

 

Adrastos choked around a mouthful of blood,and dropped to his knees, “I still love you.”

 

“Go to hell,” Ciara spat on him, and pulled the blade smoothly from his chest.

 

Irmalinde roused in Bran’s embrace, and she cried out when she saw Adrastos crumpled and bleeding on the ground. She ran to him, much the way Blair had run to Ciara, trying to stem the bloodflow and crying “No!”

 

Ciara turned her attention away from Bran’s sister and the body that lay in her arms, and gently roused Blair, “I think it’s time we laid our daughter to rest, my love.”

 

“ Oh. Of course. We should go.” To his credit he didn’t ask what had happened while he was sleeping, only took Ciara’s hand and walked with her towards the forest.

 

Bran watched over his sister with pity as she cried, and pleaded with Adrastos’ body.

 

“Come on, Irmalinde. Let him go, let him have whatever peace he may find,” Bran rested his hand on her shoulder, gently trying to lead her away.

 

“No! NO! I won’t let him go, don’t you understand?! I LOVE HIM! He can’t be dead! He’s the only thing in my life that matters anymore,” Irmalinde shrugged his hand off, and pulled Adrastos’ chest closer to her face, rocking and keening.

 

 _Enough is enough, she doesn’t even know the man she “loves”,_ Bran thought. He picked Irmalinde up by the waist and dragged her away from Adrastos kicking and screaming. The siblings were no more than three feet away when the body began to glow with the same light that had enveloped the Circle.  They watched his body absorb the light, and heard the sucking cough that signalled breath had returned.

  
_Holy. Shit. This can’t be happening. He’s immortal._


	2. Motherfluffing Microwave

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A veteran of the Microwave Wars, and an unexpected and brief addition

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, this one's short. I wrote it at 4am, whatcha gonna do?
> 
> I have spent so much goddamn time figuring out how old these guys would look, and trust me I want to drink bleach right now. Bran and Ciara look about 27, and Blair is looking 30-ish

**_CIARA_ **

 

**April 8th, 2013. Silverdale, Washington.**

* * *

 

 

“SON OF A BITCH, BRAN! SERIOUSLY?!”

 

“THE GODDAMN MICROWAVE IS POSSESSED, IT’S NOT MY FAULT CIARA!

 

The offending appliance sat, a forlorn and smoking mass of metal and plastic, on the scorch marks that had been three of its brothers. The marble counter was scarred, and the wall behind the puddle of microwave had been hopelessly blackened. Ciara and Bran groaned in unison when they heard the plaintive wail of a fire truck, “That’s the fourth one this month, Bran! What the hell are you _doing to them?_ ”

 

“They hate me! There’s nothing more to it than that!”

 

Ciara threw her hands into the air, “This is going to be fun.”  She paused when the truck’s brakes squealed outside her window, “Alright, I’m going to _try_ and explain this away. _Again._ So help me, Branimir, I’m not buying you so much as a _button_ for the next _year._ ”

 

Bran glanced helplessly at the puddle of microwave, which was still staining the surrounding air with thick black smoke. He quickly pulled open all the windows, and set the kitchen fans to blow as hard as they could.

 

Ciara had barely made it out the door when she collided face first into one of the firefighters. She, upon meeting with a solid torso that was moving just as fast as she was, found herself flat on her ass. Gravel dug into the palms of her hands, and the back of her thighs, and a calloused hand reached into her field of vision.

 

Ciara gripped it and he pulled her back onto her feet, “Sorry about that. I hope you’re not hurt too badly, Sunshine.”

 

Her eyes snapped up from the dust on her shorts, and, just like that, there he was.

* * *

 

 

Bran was dutifully ( **_If pointlessly_ ** ) fanning at the smoke in the house with a newspaper, when he heard Ciara shriek.

 

“CIARA,” he shouted for her, and rushed to see what the commotion was.

 

She had one of them pinned to the driveway. That... Just... Was she kissing him or killing him? Bran marched over, and hauled Ciara off the poor man, nearly dropping her when he got a good look at the man’s face.

 

“YOU?! Fucking hell, man. I cou-,” the rest of his sentence stopped short when Ciara kicked him in the knee, and Bran released her with a hiss of pain.

Blair, to his credit, looked utterly flabbergasted by the world at large, “I have a lot of questions, but let’s start with why the house is smoking?”

 

“It’s in it’s teen rebellion phase,” Bran said dryly.

 

Ciara, who had picked herself up off the gravel, _again,_ snorted, “He liquefied his fourth microwave this month, love. Don’t let him fool you.”

 

“Third.”

 

“Fourth. Count the layers of paint that have flaked off of my wall.”

 

Blair’s eyebrows were at his hairline, but Ciara shook her head, “Call them off, love. We’re fine.”

 

“Alright. If you’re sure.”

 

Bran sighed, “You know how tough we are, we’re fine. Go rescue a kitten, Macho Man.”

 

Blair had wrapped Ciara under his arm, and gave her a quick squeeze, “Now that I know you’re in town, I’ll swing back later. With less of an entourage.”

 

Ciara reached up on tiptoes to kiss Blair’s temple, “We’ll see you then. I’ll make dinner and everything.”

 

“Just don’t let this one anywhere near food, and we’ll be fine, Sunshine.”

 

“Bite my ass, Blair,” Bran huffed.

 

Blair dropped a kiss on Ciara’s cheek, “Nah. I quit you in Greece.”

 

She laughed outright at Bran’s particular shade of red, “Get, you menace. Come back later.”

 

“Later, Sunshine.”

* * *

 

 

Four hours later Blair was on a plane to France. Without Ciara. Without a _word_ to Ciara.

 

Maybe this time they could learn to live without each other.


	3. I Quit You In Greece

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Blair is unexpectedly Bi, Bran is aware, and Ciara is nowhere around to laugh at this ridiculous shit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The boys are late forties, ish. I'm still working on how my immortality is going to work, so bear with me while i leave myself notes on published work haha

**_BLAIR_ **

 

**_650 B.C. Amphipolis, Greece_ **

* * *

 

 

There were times in this new life that Blair forgot what it meant to be mortal. Two hundred and fifty years of not-dying would do that to a person, after all. Not that he minded, really. Immortality made winning battles easy.

 

But winning a battle was not today’s objective. Today was a day for drinking, and whoring and trying to forget. The girl in his lap with her back to him had dishwater blonde hair, and flat blue eyes, her breasts were relatively small, but not unpleasant, and her laugh at his stupid jokes was light as a silver bell. She was the type that made forgetting very difficult.  

 

 _Hair is too light,_ a voice whispered as Blair kissed the girl’s neck, she tasted wrong, too salty with sweat and sea air. The incense from the brothel left a dusty residue on her skin, and the acrid taste lingered on his tongue, bitter and foul. He tamped down his thoughts with a growl, and the girl moaned breathily at the sound.  


_Eyes are wrong, they’re supposed to be gold,_ it whispered again. Blair buried his face in the girl’s shoulder and scrunched his eyes shut. **_No. Enough._ **

 

The voice chuckled when Blair nipped the back of the girl’s neck, and squeezed gently at her breast, _What a shame, barely a decent handful to be had._

 

The girl laughed her silver laugh at something one of his shipmates said, throwing her head back and tittering like a little bird. **_Her_ ** _laugh is deeper, and harder to win. You used to get an eyebrow more often than you got a laugh._

  


“Oh, fuck this!” Blair muttered angrily, and shifted the girl from his lap to the bench. He stood, waving a hand to his shipmates **** and stomped off to find a stronger drink and a different body to warm him.

* * *

 

 

 

Dusk was just settling over the horizon when Blair scraped himself up off the cobblestone street of the alley he was apparently in. Well. He was doing very little of the scraping up. He was _being_ scraped up, if you wanted to get technical. _Who_ was scraping him up seemed to be the next question worth asking, but that would involve asking. Which would mean he’d have to untangle his tongue. Nope. Not happening.

 

“Help me here, Princess, you’re heavier than hell.”

 

Blair peered up through long black webs of stuff that came from…. Somewhere? Oh! Right. Hair. That was a thing. His eyesight was fuzzy, and the figure trying to scrape him up was some sort of flaming angel. The halo around their head was dark and burning red at the same time. That seemed familiar, “Ciaraaaa?”

 

The figure laughed, too deep though. Sad day. Not _Her._

 

“No, not Ciara. Drunken idiot. Come on, help me get you up.”

 

Blair dropped his head back down and mumbled into the cobblestones mutinously. The figure nudged him with their foot, and with a laborious sigh Blair pushed himself up onto his hands and knees. The figure knelt in front of him, and if his head had been doing something other than swimming with thoughts of dark brown hair, shining with a red like embers when the sun hit it right, and unearthly golden eyes, Blair might have been able to recognize the figure.

 

The figure, still kneeling in front of him, grasped his wrists and slowly helped him to stand. Once standing and facing the still-mysterious stranger,, Blair staggered and swayed like a man in a storm. He was peripherally aware that the ground seemed to be getting closer to his face, and was gauging how much that one rock there would hurt once it jammed into his eye, when a pair of arms wrapped around his waist, and his weight was resting on a shoulder.

 

The arms were too big to belong to a woman, Blair decided. Woman. Wooooooman. The word was strange in his head. Too much trouble. Just like women in general.

 

Oooh. Idea. Not his usual thing, but maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. After all, wasn’t change a good thing? By that logic tonight could be a _very_ good thing.

 

Blair pressed sloppy kisses to the shoulder under his cheek, placing his previously-hanging hands on a pair of bony hips. His kisses moved across a collarbone, up the column of a neck that was a strange shade of sunburnt porcelain, he nosed into curls the color of polished bronze armor, nipping and sucking on a freckled earlobe.

 

“Blair.” Somehow the man knew his name, but Blair was not. Fucking. Concerned.

 

“Busy.”

 

The man sighed, and wound a work-roughened hand through Blair’s long hair, tugging slightly. A very halfhearted attempt to pull his lips away from the man’s neck, “Blair, no. You’re drunk, and Ciara would string us both up by our balls.”

 

Blair growled, and pulled the man closer, never once allowing himself to be tugged away. The man moaned when Blair nipped over his pulse point, he moved up along the line of the man’s jaw. Teeth scraped over stubble, moving with almost agonizing slowness toward a pair of lips that seemed almost familiar. The man finally got impatient and captured Blair’s mouth for himself.

 

In every story ever told the first kiss between lovers, even casual ones, is fiery, an explosion behind two pairs of eyes, a meeting of hearts, and the first touch of two souls. Blair had felt it when he kissed Ciara, the triumph of capturing her heart, the primal pride of securing a mate. It was intoxicating.

 

Maybe it was the drink, maybe it was the ever-so-romantic setting, a grungy alleyway at dusk while it started to rain, but the fire wasn’t quite there. There was a spark, to be sure, but it had to be nurtured, with passion and tongue, and teeth, and a willingness to let the world drop away. Blair leaned into the kiss, running his hands across the man’s hips and belly and thighs. He pushed back, pinned the man to the stone wall behind them, he gave in to the fire that was quickly growing.

 

Physically there was growth as well, and a shiver of anticipation spidered down Blair’s back. The man’s hips seemed to be out of his control, rutting against Blair’s, and his quick gasps and fluttery heartbeat gave Blair the sense of being struck by lightning. (Which, as an aside, had happened. Not a fun way to die, really.)

 

The man, apparently noticing Blair’s loss of concentration, braced one hand on Blair’s bicep, and the other on this heart, “Not here. We need to get you home.”

 

Blair grinned wolfishly, “Whose home?”

 

The man laughed aloud, truly one of the best sounds on the planet, “I don’t care. I really don’t, we just need to not do this _here._ ”

 

“Let’s go, then.” Blair noticed the man’s eyes were blown, only a small ring of either sky blue or silvery grey to be seen in the fading light.

* * *

 

 

 

_Fuuuuuuuuuucking hellllllllll._

 

Birds chirped in the trees, the irritating little shits, didn’t they have any respect for the morning-impaired? The sun was an asshole, daring to reach into the room with bright golden fingers that seared his eyes. The stink of shit and sea and death that was so typical of metropoli like these drifted through the window, scratching across Blair’s nose like rough rope.

 

He noticed absently that there was an arm draped over his belly, it’s weight grounding him, helping to quiet the hurricane-like rolling and roiling of his stomach. Blair’s eyes were clamped resolutely shut against the blinding sunlight, but he felt the body next to him stir, the hand that was splayed below his heart began rubbing small circles in his skin.

 

“Good morning, Princess.”

 

Hold up. The nickname? The voice? The _pitch_ of that voice? Oh, please, please no.

 

**_This is not happening. This cannot be happening. Oh, gods above, this is not happening. I’m dreaming. Someone’s playing a prank. Ohhhhhhhhh gods._ **

 

Chunks of the night before glued themselves together in his mind, and, like puzzle pieces, they came to one clear image. A beautiful stranger, or at least it seemed, a red backdrop and nighttime rains. Too much to drink, too much to forget. All of it came together and the picture it formed was two words in painful, bold letters: **_It happened._ **

 

Blair shot up in bed, and threw his wild, disbelieving gaze at the person looking blearily happy next to him. Tousled hair, the color of bronze armor and soft as fox fur, so impossibly soft. Eyes the color of a summer storm, shaped like his mother’s best spoons, the ones she kept for special occasions. Porcelain skin, reddened and darkened by the long months at sea. The lips, pouted just so, cheeks that still held some roundness, and a proud straight nose, rounded and slightly upturned at the tip.

 

That face was so familiar, so etched into his memories that Blair couldn’t believe he hadn’t recognized it yesterday.

 

“ _Branimir.”_

 

Blair had only one reaction to this new reality, and it came tumbling out of him like a miller’s wares when a cart wheel broke. A single cry erupted past his lips, and he pushed himself back, away, from his shipmate, friend, and fellow immortal.

 

So far back that he crashed to the floor.

 

Ow.

 

“Blair? Are you okay?”

 

“Physically, emotionally, or mentally?” The answer across the board was, of course, HELL NO WHAT IS MY LIFE.

 

Bran poked his head over the edge of the bed, smiling just a bit and resting his chin on his crossed forearms, “Hi.”

 

Blair was at a total loss, “ _Hi.”_

 

“You good?”

 

“Nope, not really.”  Blair was staring blankly at a knot in the wood floor, keeping his eyes fixed and wide as he tried to process the situation.

 

“Do we need to talk about this?” The smile had left Bran’s mouth, and there was an eyebrow raised. Blair could _hear_ the damn facial expressions.

 

“Nope, not really.”

 

“Sure? Because if it becomes a regu-”

 

“Nope! One-time thing. I like _women._ ” **_Right? Yes, yes_ ** , Blair reprimanded himself, **_I like women_ **.

 

“Oooookay. So are we going to be unbearably awkward, or?” The stupid smile was back, like Bran knew how this whole thing was going to pan out.

 

“If I go with “or” does that mean we pretend this never happened and never speak of it?” If that was the case, ‘or’ was Blair’s best option.

 

“No, Princess. We had sex-”

 

“Ahdadadat, no! It does not get a name! _This,_ ” Blair motioned frantically between them. “Does not get a name!”

 

Bran rolled his eyes, turned over and hopped up off the bed. Blair went back to staring at that _very interesting_ knot on the floor when he heard the slide-thump of sheets falling off a body and hitting the floor. Bran shuffled around a little more, pulling on knee-breeches and his tunic, movements stiff, and methodical.

 

He splashed his face with water from the basin in the corner, and sighed, “I’ll see you on the ship, then.”

  


The door creaked open, and then creak-clacked closed again.

* * *

 

 **_There’s no such thing as one time with this idiot,_ ** Bran mused in the twilight of early morning. The ship rocked gently underneath them, adding a wispy cadence to Blair’s heartbeat under Bran’s ear.

 

This was the third occasion, but they had yet to reach the inevitable peak. Blair would swear that he liked women, and he didn’t know why he kept coming back, and this was the last time, he’s sorry. Bran would just smile, let him get it all out, and leave, like nothing had happened. This, of course, seemed to baffle Blair. He was used to women falling at his feet, begging to come back, begging him for just one more time.  He’d never actually had to work for attention or affection, which was probably why he kept coming back. Bran was a challenge.

 

 **_And I’ll stay that way,_ ** Bran thought as he unwound a well-muscled arm from around his waist and wriggled out of the bunk that was really too small to be shared by two full-grown men. He scratched a quick note on a piece of random parchment with charcoal, got dressed and left. Blair would wake up in an hour or so, see the note, and probably avoid him for the rest of the day. Not that avoiding someone was easy on a ship in the middle of the ocean.

  


One could hope.

* * *

 

 

Blair woke when the bed was cold. He sat up, confused by the aching loss that seemed to settle in his chest, and looked around for the bunk’s other occupant. His eyes settled on the note, and he reached for it with a small smile.

  


**_One way or the other, learn to mean it._ **


End file.
